In this article, the adequacy of syntactic descriptors used in mapuche language I discuss, in order to confront theoretically those who want to reflectits particular syntactic organization, and those who prefer to put it into universal parameters. Sustained in the “Functional Typological Grammar” of Talmy Givón (1983-1995-2001), this paper recognize the importance of formal and pragmatic properties --as well as their connection-- for the study of syntax. In this basis, in addition to the discussion about the concepts in use, an analysis of mapuche grammatical categories is presented. So, the formal and pragmatic properties of “focal person” in mapuche are analized, and a corpus based study realized over seven mapuche tales is presented. Both parts of the study show that mapuche “focal person” is completely congruent with the formal and pragmatic properties of “subject”.